How I Rebranded my Blog: from wordpress.com to .org!

It was over a year since I had wanted to transform and redesign my blog. If you follow me on social media, especially twitter, you know I had been hinting and talking about this for months. I had talked with hubby and we decided that in order for me to focus, the transition would happen after I took step 2 CK. I searched endlessly for ideas and inspiration, and I even asked in blogging groups on facebook about places to look for themes, best self – hosting services and even the best platform to have the blog on. Here is the conclusion of all my research as well as my experiences!

My Theme

For my theme I got some pretty great recommendations including the person to contact for a good, user friendly, beginner theme. That is how I ended up at Kotryna Bass Designs. She has some amazing themes for WordPress and Blogger, they are all mobile responsive and most have a place for a ShopStyle or RewardStyle widget included in the theme. She also offers free theme installation and Blogger to WordPress migration services.

I fell in love with this theme, although I doubted it at times. But every time I almost made a decision it was this the theme I chose. In the end, I just went with it and I do not regret it one bit. She also offers other services you can add to your purchase which include banners, footers, logos, media kits, and other branding packages options. She also has the option for custom work but that is hella expensive and not what I was looking for.

Most of her themes are under $50 and they include installation. Now that was a great deal for me! Most other sites were either much more expensive, or were cheaper but installation was charged separately. This is great alternative for those of us who are not great with coding, or who don’t have much time to figure everything out in one sitting, for me it was best to have someone do everything for me.

Self-Hosting

As for hosting, I chose to continue on WordPress and have Siteground do my site hosting. They also offer some amazing services, including website migration and WP installation. The transition occurred smoothly and quickly and they have an amazing 27/7 customer service and help chat available that comes in handy. As for domain purchases, I had read on several places that it was smart to not buy your domain from your hosting but I don’t remember the specifics as to why. For this reason, I bought my domain from GoDaddy and that too was a smooth transition.

So basically I searched for months for the easiest options out there for my blog transition and that did not require too much time investment without breaking the bank either. All in all, I think I spent about $100 give or take on this transition including domain and hosting for 1 year. I am definitely happy and in love with the result.

Other resources!

In my time doing research to do the transition and rebranding I found many great resources that helped me figure things out. Some of the pages that I used as reference during this transition were:

Have you gone through a blog transition? Let me know your experience below!

XO,

Jani

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7 responses to “How I Rebranded my Blog: from wordpress.com to .org!”

This new site looks great!! I’ve been meaning to do the same for mine and go self-hosted – i got into talks and such with various people to help me along with it,but then it didn’t get anywhere because i just haven’t had the time to put towards making it happen! I hope i can soon (in next few months or by 2018!) Love your new look here though! 🙂

It’s been a challenge especially with taking boards and such but all the customizations and potential are so worth it. I definitely took my time but it was all very easy in the end with all the included services and I basically didn’t have to do much. I hope you get the chance to transition soon and I can’t wait to see it!